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By the late first millennium, Christianity was caught between a hammer and an anvil – renewed barbarian attacks from the north, while fending off Islam from the south. From the remote fjords of Scandinavia came the best seamen the world had ever seen – the terrifying pagan Vikings, ravaging and plundering coastlands and river settlements as far distant as Byzantium. From the northeast descended the savage Magyars, kinfolk of the old Huns. Yet despite this, medieval Christendom slowly emerged, ruled by impressive kings such as Charlemagne and Alfred the Great, and built in large part by thousands of men and women drawn to monasteries and convents. These monks and nuns sought chiefly what Augustine and the Bible had called the “City of God” – whence the title of this book – but by their patient, selfless labor they laid the foundation of Europe. Meanwhile, evangelistic missions converted the last untamed tribes to the north and east.
AuthorChristian History Project
Year Published2004
Series NameThe Christians #6: Their first two thousand years
Category: Church
The late Middle Ages brought great suffering and death: the shattering of western Christendom between rival papacies, ecclesiastical corruption and cynicism, a plague called the Black Death which killed off half the population of Europe, the destruction of France by England, the fall of Constantinople to a resurgent Islam, and the merciless Catholic suppression of nascent Protestantism. Yet despite such ruin and despair, good things emerged. “Holy Russia” arose in the north and threw off Tartar oppression. Spaniard Christians freed themselves at last from Islam and discovered new continents across the Atlantic. In Italy, the Renaissance saw a magnificent rebirth of art and science in a new and fascinating form.
AuthorChristian History Project
Year Published2010
Series NameThe Christians #8: Their first two thousand years